The Best Meditation Apps
Ranked by what each app asks of you before you start, so vote it into the order you'd actually give a friend. Free outright sits at the top; a free plan underneath a paid one comes next; then the ones that hand you a trial with an end date; and at the bottom, the ones whose own sites turned up no pricing at all. Inside a tier the seed order is a first draft and the vote settles it. To qualify, a maker has to publish a page that names the app, which rules out the meditation studios that happen to ship an app on the side, and anything you'd have to meet through a store listing instead. Calm points at its encyclopedia entry, because the site rule here wants a page about one product and Calm markets Calm Health from the same root. Descriptions stick to what the software does and how it behaves; where a maker makes a health claim, it's quoted as theirs. Meditation music and soundscapes are a different question and aren't ranked here.
Medito is #1 on “The Best Meditation Apps”.
- 1
Medito
Run by a registered charity whose own page says 'no shareholders, no growth targets', and the software behaves accordingly: no ads, no paywall, no upsell screen. The Foundation promises 'hundreds of guided meditations, sleep stories, courses, and breathing exercises', and it publishes the source code on GitHub. The practical upshot is that nothing asks you to sign up, so you can be sitting inside a minute with no email address handed over.
https://meditofoundation.org/medito-app - 2
Healthy Minds Program
Organised around four named Pillars — Awareness, Connection, Insight and Purpose — which is the maker's own framing, and the thing that makes it feel like a course rather than a catalogue. Donors pay for it: the FAQ states the app is 'entirely free, thanks to donors like you' and that 'Users can find up to 600 days of content completely free.' The framework comes, the publisher says, from neuroscientist Richie Davidson and colleagues.
https://www.humin.org/wellbeing-tools/app - 3
Plum Village App
Built by the monastic community Thich Nhat Hanh founded, and it sounds like it. The page describes 'guided meditations, deep relaxations and other practices offered by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community', with a podcast running alongside. Free to use, with a donate button where other apps put a paywall — and the recordings are monastics reading, not studio narrators doing a soothing voice.
https://plumvillage.app/ - 4
Smiling Mind
An Australian not-for-profit made this, and the age range shows: content is sorted by age band and spans 'early childhood to adulthood', so a household can use one app rather than three. The organisation says the sessions were 'designed by psychologists'. Its own page describes the app as free for individuals and families, which is a claim the organisation makes about itself, not an independent finding.
https://www.smilingmind.com.au/smiling-mind-app - 5
UCLA Mindful
Made by a university health system, and it reads like a public resource rather than a product: free, no upsell, no tier to unlock. The page lists 'Basic Meditations for getting started, in 19 different languages'. Past the basics there are 'Weekly Hammer Podcasts and Drop-in Recordings — 30 minute meditations on different themes you can search for and bookmark', so a session that landed can be found again next week.
https://www.uclahealth.org/uclamindful/ucla-mindful-app - 6
Insight Timer
The name is the feature. Underneath the library sits a plain meditation timer 'with customizable intervals, bells, and ambient sounds', which is exactly what you want if you already know how to sit and just need something to ring. The catalogue is credited to 'psychologists, spiritual leaders and mindfulness teachers'. Insight Timer's own pricing page calls the app free while selling an optional supporter tier alongside it.
https://insighttimer.com/ - 7
Petit BamBou
Meditation, sleep and movement — that trio comes straight from the app's own title, and the movement strand is what sets it apart from the sit-still-and-breathe crowd. The free arrangement is spelled out on the homepage rather than buried in a settings menu: 'With no ads and no need to add a payment method, you can listen to meditation sessions and use free meditation and breathing tools for unlimited time.'
https://www.petitbambou.com/en - 8
Happier
Formerly Ten Percent Happier, renamed in 2024, and the sceptic's tone survived the rebrand — the free courses are titled 'Unlearn to Meditate, The Basics, and The Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness'. Session length is where it flexes hardest: the site says 'Most of these can be set for 5-15 minutes and some go as long as 90 minutes'. Handy if your available time changes daily.
https://www.meditatehappier.com/ - 9
Headspace
The one most people mean when they say they tried a meditation app, and the reason is the on-ramp: animated explainers, a narrator who doesn't perform serenity at you, a beginner course that assumes nothing. Its page advertises 'Explore 1,000+ guided meditations for feeling more relaxed — ad-free and always there'. It sits here rather than higher because entry is 'a free 14-day trial', then a subscription.
https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app - 10
Waking Up
Sam Harris's app merges theory and practice, and the Introductory Course is 'a short meditation and mindfulness lesson from Sam Harris each day for one month' — a structured month, not a shuffle of tracks. It leans nondual, which won't be to everyone's taste. The detail worth knowing before you dismiss it as expensive: the site says 'We offer a free membership to anyone who can't afford Waking Up.'
https://www.wakingup.com/ - 11
Calm
Sleep Stories are the reason this one crossed over. The article dates the launch to 'December 1, 2016' with 'an initial range of 23 Sleep Stories', and puts the founding in 2012 under Michael Acton Smith and Alex Tew. Worth knowing that the entry covers the company rather than the app, and that it is linked here because Calm sells Calm and Calm Health from one root. Entry is a trial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_(company) - 12
Balance
Instead of handing you a catalogue, it interviews you: 'Each day, you'll answer questions about your experience, goals, and obstacles', then assembles the session from what you said. Whether that reads as clever or as fussy depends on how you feel about being asked things before seven in the morning. Published by The Mind Company. Entry is a trial rather than a free plan, which is what places it here.
https://themindcompany.com/apps/balance - 13
Meditopia
The language switcher goes well past the usual English-plus-a-few — Türkçe, Português and Русский all sit in the same menu — so if English isn't your first language, start here rather than fighting a translation. Sleep is a whole strand: 'Sleep meditations and nature sounds to relax'. Entry is 'Try 7 days for free!' on the maker's own offer page, which is a countdown, not a plan.
https://meditopia.com/en/individuals - 14
The Mindfulness App
Offline listening is the thing worth knowing here: 'Downloads land in your Library under the Downloads tab, for easy on-the-go listening without Wi-Fi or data usage.' That single feature decides whether an app survives a flight or a tunnel, and plenty of rivals handle it worse. Entry is a '14-day free trial', after which the whole library sits behind a subscription.
https://www.themindfulnessapp.com/ - 15
Breethe
Co-founded by Lynne Goldberg, who the site says has been 'teaching mindfulness and meditation for over 20 years', and the content mix runs wider than the category norm: 'Meditation, hypnotherapy, stories, music, sounds' all sit in one library. Its own claim to a first is 'audio dance meditation', a delight or a red line, depending. No price and no plan turned up anywhere on its own domain — the store is where you'd find out.
https://breethe.com/ - 16
Oak
Small, quiet and iOS-only — the site links an App Store badge and no Android one, which is the whole story on availability. It offers 'guided and unguided meditations, simple breathing exercises, and gentle sleep support', and the unguided half is the point: you can 'customize each session by length and sound'. It sits last for a plain reason: the site says nothing about pricing anywhere.
https://www.oakmeditation.com/
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